"of the churches embracing the Book of Mormon—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)—has not endorsed an official position for the geographical setting the Book of Mormon, although some of its leaders have spoken of various possible locations over the years. There have also been multiple attempts to identify the several civilizations in the Book of Mormon, which are dated in the text as living from 2500 BC to 400 AD, but no consensus has ever been reached. According to Joseph Smith, an angel named Moroni told him ""there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates,"
"creeds were an abomination."" Smith described another vision in 1823 as being visited in his bedroom by an ""angel Moroni"", who told him of a record of an ancient people written in an ancient language on golden plates. After repeated visits by this angel in successive years, Smith described receiving and translating this ancient record and publishing the translation as the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon provided many teachings about the atonement of Christ that were not as clear in the Bible, as also teachings about the House of Israel and the baptismal covenant. When Smith prayed in"
"York (coordinates: ) is where Smith claimed he discovered the golden plates which contained the writings of the Book of Mormon. Smith wrote: ""On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box."" Smith visited the hill each year on September 22 between 1823 and 1827 and claimed he was instructed by a ""holy messenger"", whom Smith identified as the Angel Moroni. Smith was finally allowed to take the record on September 22, 1827. Eleven other men gave written testimony that they had also"
"visions in 1829. Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. The book states that Moroni buried them before he died after a great battle between two pre-Columbian civilizations. After he died, he became an angel who was tasked with guarding the golden plates and directing Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Smith, he returned the golden plates to Moroni after they were translated and, as of 1838, Moroni still had the plates in his"
"referred to the angel she saw as ""Brother Nephi"". According to the Book of Mormon, Moroni was the son of Mormon, the prophet for whom the Book of Mormon is named. Moroni may have been named after Captain Moroni, an earlier Book of Mormon figure. Before Mormon's death in battle, he passed the golden plates to Moroni. Moroni then finished writing on the plates and concluded the record, presumably burying them in the hill Cumorah in western New York. Because of his instrumentality in the restoration of the gospel, Moroni is commonly identified by Latter Day Saints as the angel"
"angel of God named Moroni appeared to him and said that a collection of ancient writings was buried in a nearby hill in present-day Wayne County, New York, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets. The writings were said to describe a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western hemisphere 600 years before Jesus' birth. According to the narrative, Moroni was the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith stated that this vision occurred on the evening of September 21, 1823 and"
"physically in 1829 (three claiming to have been visited by an angel as well). Several other witnesses, some of them friendly to Smith and some hostile, observed him dictating the text that eventually became the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, critics have explored a number of issues, including (1) whether Smith actually had golden plates, or whether the text of the Book of Mormon originated in his mind or through inspiration; (2) whether it was Smith himself who composed the book's text, or whether an associate of Smith's such as Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon could have composed the text; and"
"the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim"". Around this time, Cowdery was writing a history of Smith in which he identified the angel as the prophet Moroni from the Book of Mormon. In July 1838, Smith wrote an article for the church periodical ""Elders' Journal"", in the form of questions and answers, that stated the following: Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the book of Mormon?Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, as a resurrected being, appeared"
"accounts. They also note that Chase was just as involved in treasure-seeking as Joseph Smith and so perhaps envied the seer stone once he became aware of its purported abilities . The Chase affidavit relates a conversation that he states that he had with the father of Joseph Smith in June 1827. The story relates to Smith's claim to have seen an angel named Moroni at the time that he was attempting to retrieve from a stone box the Golden Plates from which the Book of Mormon is said to have been translated. According to Chase, there were certain requirements"
"the last prophet to contribute to the book, a man named Moroni, buried it in the Hill Cumorah in present-day Manchester, New York, then returned to Earth in 1827 as an angel, revealing the location of the plates to Smith, and instructing him to translate the plates into English for use in the restoration of Christ's true church in the latter days. Critics claim that it was fabricated by Smith, drawing on material and ideas from contemporary 19th-century works rather than translating an ancient record. The Book of Mormon has a number of original and distinctive doctrinal discussions on subjects"
"the angel Moroni, a resurrected ancient American prophet-historian, who had been last to write on them. Smith claimed that the angel required him to obey certain commandments prior to receiving them and that his inability to obey prevented him from obtaining the plates until four years later, on September 22, 1827. During this period, Smith also began dictating written commandments in the voice of God, including a commandment to form a new church and to choose eleven men who would join Smith as witnesses of the plates. These witnesses later declared, in two separate written statements attached to the 1830"
"been one of the factors behind Dr. Nathan Smith treating Smith's brother Joseph's leg. Smith was a close advisor and confidant to his brother Joseph as the latter produced the Book of Mormon and established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In June 1829, Smith was baptized in Seneca Lake, New York. He was one of the Eight Witnesses who swore to the reality of a set of golden plates inscribed with the Book of Mormon. He also said he saw the angel Moroni. When the Church of Christ was organized on April 6, 1830, six men"
"prophets, buried in a nearby hill in Ontario County, New York. These writings became the Book of Mormon, and were said to have described a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western Hemisphere 600 years before Jesus' birth. According to the narrative, Moroni was the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith stated that he was instructed by Moroni to meet him at the hill annually each September 22 to receive further instructions; four years after the initial visit, in 1827, he"
"had been shown the golden plates by an angel, and that the voice of God had confirmed the truth of their translation. Later, a group of Eight Witnesses — composed of male members of the Whitmer and Smith families — issued a statement that they had been shown the golden plates by Smith. According to Smith, the angel Moroni took back the plates once Smith finished using them. The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra on March 26, 1830, by printer E. B. Grandin. Soon after, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally"
"Moroni told Smith that the plates could be found buried in a prominent hill near his home, later called ""Cumorah"", a name found in the Book of Mormon. Before dawn, Moroni reappeared two more times and repeated the information. However, the angel would not allow Smith to take the plates until he obeyed certain ""commandments"". Smith recorded some of these commandments but made it clear the main thrust of Moroni's message was that he had to keep God's commandments in general. Some contemporaries who later claimed he told them the story said there were others, some of which are relevant"
"for obtaining divine revelations and less as the name of a specific instrument"". In 1827, Smith said that he had been visited again by the angel who had previously revealed the location of the golden plates, along with other items such as the Urim and Thummim, and that these objects were buried in a nearby hillside. Smith said that after translating the Book of Mormon, he returned the plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel, whom he identified as the resurrected Moroni. Smith reportedly told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he"
"who inscribed a few additional words of his own, and concealed the plates about AD 400. Near the end of Moroni's life (approximately AD 421), he placed these plates along with several other items in a stone box in a hillside (now named Cumorah) near present-day Palmyra, New York. By Smith's account, on September 21, 1823, this same Moroni, now an angel, appeared to Smith to instruct him about this ancient record and its destined translation into English. Smith was shown the location of the plates (and the other items in the box), but was not immediately allowed to take"
"in white raiment, of whiteness beyond anything Joseph had ever seen in his life, and had a girdle about his waist. He saw his hands and wrists, and they were pure and white."" Smith said that on the night of September 21, 1823, Moroni appeared to him and told him about the golden plates that were buried in a stone box a few miles from Smith's home. Smith said that the same angel visited him various times over the course of the next six years; Smith also said that the angel visited him to retrieve the golden plates after Smith"
"account did not say whether or not the angel was referring to ""himself"" as Moroni. In 1835, Smith identified the angel ""as"" Moroni: in 1835, while preparing the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, he made additions to an earlier revelation regarding sacramental wine, and indicated a number of angels that would come to the earth after the Second Coming and drink wine with Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Among those angels, the revelation listed ""Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel; to whom I have committed"
"which he and his partisans vigorously denied. The plates disappeared around 1900, and their current whereabouts are unknown. According to Latter Day Saint beliefs, many ancient inhabitants of the Americas engraved records on metal plates. Joseph Smith, the movement's founding prophet, claimed that he translated the Book of Mormon from a set of golden plates which he was shown the location of by the then resurrected ancient keeper of the plates, Moroni. Upon Smith's murder in 1844, a number of claimants came forward to lead his church, including Strang. As a recent convert to Mormonism, Strang did not possess the"
"had finished translating a portion of the writing on the plates into the Book of Mormon. In addition to Smith, several other early Mormons said they had visions where they saw the angel Moroni. Three Witnesses said they saw the angel in 1829: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. Other early Mormons who said they saw Moroni include Emma Hale Smith, Hyrum Smith, Luke S. Johnson, Zera Pulsipher, W. W. Phelps, John P. Greene and his wife Rhoda, John Taylor, Oliver Granger, Heber C. Kimball, Lucy Harris, and Harrison Burgess. Mary Whitmer may also have seen Moroni, although she"
"possession. There have been two conflicting accounts as to the name of the angel. Initially, Smith merely referred to ""an angel"" without identifying its name. Thus, in an 1831 letter from Lucy Mack Smith to her brother, she discusses Moroni as the person who buried the plates, but does not identify him as the unnamed ""holy angel"" that gave Smith the means to translate the golden plates. In Smith's 1832 history, he said he was visited by ""an angel of the Lord"", who mentioned the Book of Mormon prophet ""Moroni"" as the last engraver of the golden plates; however, Smith's"
"metal plates from the ancient Mediterranean longer than the eight-page Persian codex, and none from any ancient civilization in the Western Hemisphere. Latter Day Saint movement and engraved metal plates Engraved metal plates hold a special significance in the Latter Day Saint movement because in 1827, the founder of that religion, Joseph Smith, claimed to have obtained a set of engraved golden plates from an angel and from them translated the Book of Mormon, a religious text of that religious tradition. Latter Day Saints believe that other engraved metal plates exist, most of which are mentioned in the Book of"
"including Jesus and God the Father. Smith also described many other visions involving angels. Some of his earliest visitations involved a Nephite prophet-warrior, who called himself Moroni. Smith said this angel appeared to him many times, and showed him where to find a set of buried Golden Plates containing ancient writings that the prophet-warrior had sealed in a stone box before his death, together with other artifacts. The writings on the Golden Plates, according to Smith, contained an account of the various nations that inhabited ancient America, and described how they were led to the New World by Jesus, but"
"experienced a series of visions, including one in which he saw ""two personages"" (presumably God the Father and Jesus Christ) and others in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates called the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian church. Members of the church were later called ""Latter Day Saints"" or ""Mormons"", and Smith announced a revelation in"
"true."" Lost 116 pages The ""lost 116 pages"" were the original manuscript pages of what Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, said was the translation of the Book of Lehi, the first portion of the golden plates revealed to him by an angel in 1827. These pages, which had not been copied, were lost by Smith's scribe, Martin Harris, during the summer of 1828 and are presumed to have been destroyed. Smith completed the Book of Mormon without retranslating the Book of Lehi, replacing it with what he said was an abridgment taken from the Plates of"
"Francesca that he would send his inquiry to John A. Widtsoe, who was the president of the Church's European Mission. A few days later, Widtsoe wrote to Di Francesca sending him a pamphlet that contained the story of the Latter Day Saint prophet Joseph Smith, the gold plates, and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. In this way, Di Francesca finally learned of the origins of the book he found on that barrel of ashes so many years ago. On 5 June 1932, Widtsoe came to Naples to baptize Di Francesca, but a revolution between the fascists and"
"works are the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The Book of Mormon is said by the church to be ""Another Testament of Jesus Christ"" that Smith translated from buried golden plates. The LDS Church believes that the Angel Moroni told Smith about these golden plates and guided him to find them buried in the Hill Cumorah. The church believes that this Angel Moroni is at least partial fulfillment of Revelation 14:6 in the Bible. The church characterizes the Book of Mormon as ""the most correct of any book on earth"
"the last of the Nephites, abridged the record, writing on plates of gold. Mormon states that he took his account primarily from the large plates of Nephi, but he also included the unabridged, small plates of Nephi. Mormon's son, Moroni added to Mormon's account, but stated that he would have written more, ""if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none"" (Mormon 8:5). Moroni had been commanded by his father to seal the plates and ""hide up the record in the earth"" (Mormon 8:4). Adherents of Mormonism believe that Moroni, as an angel,"
"first stone, apparently the same one that he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of a chicken egg, found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors. The LDS Church released photographs of the stone on August 4, 2015. According to Smith, he found the plates after he was directed to them by a heavenly messenger whom he later identified as the angel Moroni. According to the story, the angel first visited Smith's bedroom late at night, on September 22 in 1822 or 1823."
"to translate, and that Moroni had taken back the plates to be returned only after Smith repented. Smith later stated that God allowed him to resume translation, but directed that he begin translating another part of the plates (in what is now called the Book of Mosiah). In 1829, work resumed on the Book of Mormon, with the assistance of Oliver Cowdery, and was completed in a short period (April–June 1829). Smith said that he then returned the plates to Moroni upon the publication of the book. The Book of Mormon went on sale at the bookstore of E. B."
"understood the sealing to be a supernatural or spiritual sealing ""by the power of God"" (2 Nephi 27:10), an idea supported by a reference in the Book of Mormon to the ""interpreters"" with which Smith said they were buried or ""sealed."" Oliver Cowdery also stated that when Smith visited the hill, he was stricken by a supernatural force because the plates were ""sealed by the prayer of faith."" Several witnesses described a physical sealing placed on part of the plates by Mormon or Moroni. David Whitmer said that when an angel showed him the plates in 1829, ""a large portion"
"aside from the gospel."" Smith said he told the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt. The event would later grow in importance to Smith's followers, who now regard it as the first event in the gradual restoration of Christ's church to earth. Until the 1840s, however, the experience was largely unknown, even to most Mormons. Smith may have originally understood the event simply as a personal conversion. According to his later accounts, Smith was visited by an angel named Moroni, while praying one night in 1823. Smith said that this angel revealed the location of a"